Where are the veterans in the federal workforce?

Federal government representatives talk about their commitment in hiring veterans, but how well do they really do?

Not bad, actually.

In fiscal 2016 (the latest year for which data is available), roughly one-quarter to one-half of the workers at the largest agencies, such as the departments of Defense and Homeland Security, are military veterans, according to the Office of Personnel Management.

Other agencies, including some of the relatively smaller ones, such as AID and EPA, employ a significantly smaller percentage of veterans.

There’s been relatively little variation from fiscal 2014 to 2016 in the percentages, as demonstrated in the chart below. And overall, 31.1 percent of federal workers were veterans in fiscal 2016, only a slight bump from 2012 when veterans made up 29.7 percent of the workforce.

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